The guiding principle of Six Ridiculous Questions is that life is filled with ridiculousness. And questions. That only by giving in to these truths may we hope to slip the surly bonds of reality and attain the higher consciousness we all crave. (Eh, not really, but it sounded good there for a minute.) It’s just. Who knows? The ridiculousness and question bits, I guess. Why six? Assonance, baby, assonance.
In our morning reading: Ryan Chapman on Vladimir Nabokov, a playlist from Kathe Koja, and more.
The Unlovables
by Treena Thibodeau
Zenobia thinks we should get a dog.
I don’t want a dog, I say. Who’s going to take care of a dog?
We both will, she says. My whole life I wanted a dog and no one ever let me get one. Come on, Tuck, it’ll make me happy.
Magic words: a way to make Zenobia happy. Something that will turn her toward me like the tumblers of a lock. We’re on the couch, and even after I let her pick the show and make her the popcorn she likes (coconut oil, freshly grated parmesan cheese, Zenobia frowning at the mess of the pot as if someone threw it sticky and smoking through our window. She loves messy things, like cheese popcorn and dogs, and hates mess), she still is not looking at the television but rather at an empty stretch of wall. I keep checking to see if there’s something crawling there. It’s unsettling.
In our weekend reading: interviews with Lyz Lenz and Jenny Bhatt, great neo-noir fiction, and more.
In our afternoon reading: thoughts on Rita Indiana’s music, reviews of books by Jeremy Robert Johnson and Susanna Clarke, and more.
In our morning reading: a playlist from Natalie Bakopoulos, an interview with Adam Wilson, and more.
In our afternoon reading: a review of Laura van den Berg’s collection, an interview with Karolina Waclawiak, and more.
Imagine a tree in an old growth forest. The core is ancient. Its roots have been in the earth for centuries, drawing substance from it while helping shape the ecosystem around it and even becoming an ecosystem itself. However, at the tip of its branches burgeons new life, infant shoots that are new to the world. This tree is just like David Joy’s latest novel, When These Mountains Burn; something both old and new that embodies change and permanence while also reminding us that things we imagine monolithic, like places and cultures, are malleable, changing, ephemeral.